On January first, 2018, some Oasis pricing will increase. The price for single men on Sunday night, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday will increase to $80. The other major pricing will stay the same: $95 for couples on Friday and Saturday, $80 for couples on Thursday, $20 for women on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and no charge for women on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The reason for the price increase is the very large increase to the Ontario minimum wage that is also effective on January first. Oasis customer service people are paid minimum wage, plus they pool and share the tips. So the base wage for them will be going up from $11.60 per hour to $14.00 per hour. This increase will increase Oasis’ costs by over $10,000 per month, so we felt that we had no option but to increase our customer pricing. We do not expect that the price increase will cover the full cost increase, but it will hopefully offset it significantly.
Oasis does everything legally and by the book, including paying all our staff with full deductions, issuing T4’s, and adhering to the legal employment standards. It appears that many other bars in Toronto of all types pay their bar staff in cash, and so are not effected by things like minimum wage increases. We prefer to operate legally, but in this case, it is quite costly to do so. Hopefully our customers value the way we operate the business, and understand the position it puts us in.
We hope that our customers will be able to continue to come to Oasis, and feel that it represents good value. We will work hard to give good customer service, and help our customers have good experiences. Hopefully the large pay increase will motivate the staff even more than they already are, and the standard of customer service will rise even higher than it already is. Please let us know if you have any concerns about this.
The management and founders of Oasis Aqualounge were recently interviewed by Carol and David of The Sexy Lifestyle on a live-to-air radio broadcast, this past weekend.
